The Secret Laboratory
by filgaiasample
Summary: WA3 It's been exactly three days sice Jet started dreaming, and the boy haunting his dreams isn't about to leave anytime soon. In-game character exploration, one-shot.


_I've only ever written one fanfic before, and it was ridiculously short and a few years ago. So any constructive crit on the following is really welcome. This is more of a character thought (whatever the technical term is) inspired by Persona 4 – readable without knowing P4, but if you have played the game you'll see the rather odd comparison I make here – which I admit, is me completely indulging in my love for these two characters. This isn't a crossover, by the way, but it does have Persona 4 spoilers, but they're not obvious unless you've played the game. This is fairly short by standards, I think? Oh yeah, I also have no idea if "drama" is the right genre, it was a process of elimination.  
_

**The Secret Laboratory**

A dream, Clive had told him, was a representation of your inner frustrations. No matter how hard he tried, Jet couldn't recall ever dreaming before exactly three days ago. The night sky extended as far as he could see, would he appear again tonight? It had started on the night before Shane was possessed, and three more nights had passed between then and their journey towards that hugely irritating tower, that crushed all of Jet's hopes for this crazy "Defenders of Justice" (as Virginia called them) trip finally being over. No matter how hard he was fighting, it seemed it was never hard enough to make everybody just leave him alone. Jet had his answers, those that Virginia's old man had kept that night when he was on the brink of leaving – deserting – his comrades. What was stopping him now? Was it because it was desertion to just run away from everything that had happened? Even if he ran, a constant reminder of who, or rather, who he wasn't, would always be there.

Every night it was the same, debating whether to stay, what he felt, until he found himself running, never sure whether he was asleep or awake. It was the destination that always made him so unsure of running the next night. Rather than more empty plains lit only by the moon, or a small town where he could hide, Jet landed right in the middle of his worst nightmare, something completely foreign, but yet so familiar at the same time.

A single table, the first focal point of the room, comes into his vision first. This is followed by a large surgical light, with lights glaring down onto the table. It is unquestionable that it's for dissecting, but who is going dissected here – it's a thought Jet has to swallow down before he shivers. The fog clouding the room, it's oppressive, but whether it's all in his mind or something oozing out of one of the many machines and devices littering the room, Jet doesn't know. The whirring and clicking of the machines, it's endless. A difference though, the huge blade that had only lingered, momentarily ticking like everything else, above the surgical table, was lowered only inches away from a victim bound and silenced on the table.

For a moment, Jet believed he had found freedom from the real torment of these nightmares. A figure that was both ordered like the clockwork ticking in his ears, but wild and unpredictable like the whirling of the broken machines that had plagued his every thought since Deus Ex Machina fell beneath the dunes. That voice, it rang shrill and loudly throughout the room, overpowering the ordered and flawless ticking.

"You came back, somebody who doesn't just leave!"

Those eyes, those piercing yellow eyes. Was that a hint of madness? All scientific geniuses were mad, Jet had concluded. They gazed up under the rim of a hat, hands grabbing at him through a layer of white cloth. Was he a Dream Demon?

"Will you stay longer? Don't run away this time..."

Jet pushed the boy away, watching the figure fall backwards, waving a scalpel in the air. The ticking had stopped; this was the wild unbridled feelings. The need to be loved, the feelings of want that brought everybody close. He knew what was coming all too well. Rejection.

"Running is weak..."

The voice had slowed; the clockwork had started running again. There was that cold calculating tone that analysed his every move, and every move he didn't make. Subconsciously, Jet hid his face behind his scarves.

"Hiding, too... Just like she did..."

Who was 'she'? The body on lying on the table, somebody he knew?

"She hid, just like you are..."

He was still being lectured. He wasn't hiding, there was nothing to hide from, what was he hiding? Jet doesn't care, Jet shows he doesn't care.

"Building up a fortress, something to shield you from the world, something to keep them out and keep you in..."

Keep them out. Like those annoying loudmouths? What did they ever know? Virginia is always prying, Gallows is an oaf and Clive seems to only have become interested because...

"She was perfect, flawless, nobody wanted to get close, and neither did she want them to get close. You wall is of ice, you're only scared of people getting close because..."

He covered his ears. Jet knew he could never admit these feelings. Since that train emerged from the dark tunnel, he'd felt so much more...

"Why won't you listen to me? You act like you want my mind, but then you push me away too!"

The ticking stopped again, the whirring was back.

"Please don't leave me..."

He thought of Virginia, he thought of Gallows, he thought of Clive.

"If you reject me...I'll have nothing left..."

If he hadn't have met them, then what would he be now? Lonely? Isolated? Travelling, still living in his fantasy world of knowing nothing. A delusion in which he could simply claim he didn't care because nobody ever cared about him.

"It's all lies... I can change everything, I can change you..."

Ticking, ticking. Those mad yellow eyes, pointing the scalpel at his own lilac ones.

"I could take you apart, I managed to take _her_ right apart, and you're nothing compared to _her. _Build you something new..._"_

Did it matter how he felt? Just a machine, or a creation or whatever it was they meant for him to be. _Things_ don't have feelings. Just data, data that lines up and tells things how to work. Data doesn't dream, data doesn't feel, data doesn't have memories of pain, disgust, horror.

"Please don't push me away"

Where was the distinction now? The boy was practically crying at his feet. Had he even moved, Jet wasn't sure if he was even real.

"It's all a facade..."

But if he was just a creation, then why was he having this conflict now? Why was he constantly giving himself reasons not to run away, reasons why his life has meaning?

"You can be both..."

Jet needed to scream. To tell this stupid child dressed up like the shadows in his faint memory that he was wrong, that there was nothing for him to accept.

"_I..."_

He knew that was wrong.

"_I want to find a reason..."_

Can an artificial life from, created from this planet itself, really find meaning to live in everything it has rejected so far?

The figure drew its face from under the hat, smiling and clinging to his arm. Empathetically, but with that same touch of madness, or was this the genius?

"You can be Jet and Adam Kadmon..."

The voice didn't come from the shadowy figure clinging to his arm this time. It was a single line of encouragement, in a voice feminine and determined like Virginia's, but well spoken like Clive's.

The fog was lifting now, and Jet closed his eyes to replay the voice that had spoken to him. The whirring and ticking was stopping, fading away to a silence only heard under the vast night sky. If it was just a dream then Clive was right, he was pushing them away. It was fear, he was lonely, and Jet was a thousand other different things. He pulled his covers over his face in case the others were awake to witness the torrent of emotions in his face. He could keep his facade purposely for a little longer.

Because recognition, acceptance and admission are each a terrifying proposition and Jet was only at the beginning of his long journey.


End file.
